


When the Jacaranda Blooms

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Collateral Damage, Deductions, F/M, Gen, Holidays, Inappropriate Behavior, Seduction, Sensuality, Tango, Violinist Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9160771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: On holiday in Buenos Aires, Sherlock Holmes finds what he has been seeking in an unexpectedly obvious place...





	

**Author's Note:**

> If it was not obvious from the description, this one-shot takes place in the same universe as the [Death Takes A Holiday](http://archiveofourown.org/series/42382) series, but can be considered a standalone ficlet.

He had been in Buenos Aires for three days before he found her.

It wasn't as if Sherlock Holmes was _worried_ that he wouldn't find the Woman in Buenos Aires during their latest holiday, despite the fact that the seven days of their prescribed holiday were ticking by and he had yet to find a trace of her. That was, after all, part of the challenge, part of what made their holidays so desirable. Not only the simple promise of the puzzle to solve, the chase to commence, but the very real knowledge that his opponent was perfectly matched to him, that she was the one person in the world who _could_ emerge victorious in this game against him. No, it was not concern for her, concern that she had run into trouble in Buenos Aires that grew in Sherlock's mind with each passing day, but annoyance, an irritation that if he did not find her soon, that she would never let him forget it. That he would, in both his own and her prodigious memories, have _lost_ if he did not unravel her puzzle.

In the end, he did not find her so much as she appeared in his path like a lightning strike. Literally, as he stalked towards the Plaza de Mayo, ignoring the creeping humidity that made the hair cling to the nape of his neck, scanning the crowd for any hint of a disguised Woman, and his irritation growing as he found nothing... There she was, brazen beneath a tree heavy with lilac blossoms, her lips red as blood, her long limbs poised, beckoning, as a trio of street musicians began to play.

Sherlock stopped abruptly at the sight of her, ignoring the glares of the tourists who were now forced to eddy around him, and stared, his senses suddenly filling with the scene, with the awareness of her presence. The colour of her lipstick, the way the silk dress she wore clung to the swell of her hip then fell back, showing a hint of pale thigh, the heady scent of jacaranda blossoms that hung overhead, the scent that he had thought so irritable and inescapable in the city before now intoxicating, filling his nostrils with the faint accompaniment of sandalwood. She did not appear to see him as one of the street musicians began to tune up, and Sherlock felt his fingers twitch, reaching for the package of cigarettes in his breast pocket.

She stood waiting, a small predatory smile curling at the corner of her lip as she scanned the crowd in front of her and Sherlock ducked to avoid her gaze, thrusting his hand into his pocket for the handful of bills he had shoved in there after buying his cigarettes. He wove his way over to the musicians, and without a word, shoved a few bills at the one manhandling a worn violin. The man took his meaning easily enough, and Sherlock slipped into his seat on an upended plastic bucket, keeping his face turned away lest the Woman notice his subterfuge.

A subterfuge that, it turned out, was unnecessary, as the Woman's attention remained on the crowd, her eyes sweeping over the onlookers until she lit on a man looking increasingly uncomfortable in his well-cut suit. The musicians on Sherlock's either side began to play with gusto as the Woman took three long steps towards the spectators and raised an imperious hand to the man in the suit. He followed suit, drawing swift, demanding notes from the violin, matching the tempo set by the Woman's stiletto heels, his eyes never leaving her form, drinking her in as a part of him rifled through his mind palace, seeking an appropriately challenging tango to suit.

 

***

 

The man uncomfortable in his well cut suit swallowed hard and gestured questioningly to himself as Irene Adler's attention focused on him, and she had to keep from rolling her eyes in response as she stepped in close, the deep purple silk of her high slit skirt a cool whisper against her skin. He looked panicked for a moment as she took his hand, his muscles tensing to flee, before resistance melted out of him as he succumbed to the inevitable, and his body fell into step, guided by the firm touch of her hand on his shoulder, the promised bite of her nails against his suit collar.

Irene's smile deepened as he submitted and she drew him into a close embrace, allowing the sawing tango to dictate her motions. This close, she watched with amusement as her dance partner's Adam's apple bobbed, as he swallowed hard past his nervousness as he fell into the dance, allowing her unconventional lead. She felt him inhale sharply, trying to not be distracted by the scent of her perfume even as his body reacted to the feel of soft breasts against his front, to the lingering touch of her knee along his inner thigh. Her amusement grew as he fought on gamely, his worn leather shoes keeping time with her heels as she danced between his legs, as her hips undulated with serpentine ease, his eyes flicking over the glimpses of skin she flashed.

Her impromptu dance partner eventually found his footing in the dance, his clammy hand growing confident as it ran along her back, holding steady at her waist to allow Irene to sweep backwards, to dip with a flair that distracted both the audience and her partner alike. The music helped, flowing from a familiar Vivaldi strain to the faster pace of the tango and back again. The violin player in particular was more skilled than she would have expected from street performers, but she did not have time to glance over, not when her tango partner consumed her attention. Another draw of her knee against his thigh, another dip, his too-warm hands hovering over the silk covering her hips.

Irene pressed her advantage, parried his touches, danced backwards, drawing him with feather-light footsteps and touches like spider's silk until she felt the music crescendo, and allowed her fingers to run over chest, fingertips raking lightly between his suit jacket and the fine linen of his shirt. She ignored the sour sweat she could smell on him and her lips moved silently close to his ear, the nails of her right hand raking his front. She heard him gasp and she smiled as her left hand liberated a small piece of paper from his breast pocket, replacing it with an equally small baggie of something illicit, and she danced away again before his hands could curl shut around her waist.

The violinist continued playing as the crowd of tourists began to clap dutifully, and Irene favoured her still-oblivious dance partner, an up-and-coming banker with interesting ties to a particularly well-known political family, with a breathless laugh and a polite nod. Nothing more than anyone would expect from a friendly dancer. She watched him return the nod, his right hand reaching for his wallet at his back pocket, relaxing when he realized it had not been pick-pocketed, unaware of what _had_ been taken and what had been replaced. He nodded again, offered her a small bow, and ducked away quickly, as if afraid she would insist on an encore. Irene would have laughed at that, if a sudden familiar tune from the violinist didn't catch her attention instead.

 

***

 

He couldn't resist.

Of course he couldn't, not after watching the masterful way the Woman snared the unsuspecting banker into her dance, watched her draw him in with cultural expectations, enticed and denied him with a skill Sherlock himself reserved for his own violin until her mark was certain he knew what her game was... And then find himself utterly flummoxed, denied and left none-the-wiser. It had been exhilarating to watch, and even more so to know he himself played a role, accompanying the Woman sight unseen, his choice of music allowing the Woman to play with her prey to the end. He knew she had taken something from the young man, it was obvious in the way she distracted him, in the way he gasped, but in spite of himself Sherlock could not figure out exactly what she had taken from him, what she had liberated, what had marked the young man uncomfortable in his suit out for her attentions.

And it both thrilled and irritated Sherlock to no end to know he had missed something.

That was the moment that sealed his own fate in the Woman's orbit. The instant that he knew he could not simply walk away from the Plaza de Mayo without leaving his own clue behind. He waited, drawing a few more long notes from the violin, winding another bar of the Vivaldi motif into the Piazolla tango, until the polite applause began to fade, then he played it, the motif he knew she would recognize, the one that was _Hers_ and hers alone, those soaring notes he'd written once, a lifetime and three deaths ago, for the Woman. It was quick, unnoticed by the crowd and the musicians he sat next to, but its effect on the Woman herself was instantaneous.

Sherlock's lips twisted into a pleased smirk as the Woman heard the telltale notes, as the loose-limbed dancer's grace she was affecting fell away as if she had been electrified, and he set the violin down, rising to give the street musician back his instrument and his place with little more than a grunt of thanks. It allowed him to duck, to hide his face from the Woman's steely gaze, but it was a useless gesture, a taunt, nothing more. She did not need to see him to know who would have played those notes, and as Sherlock walked away from the small crowd and the street musicians began to play again, he listened for the staccato beat of footsteps, of the sure gunfire steps of stiletto heels, knowing they would follow.

 

***

 

He ducked away so she could not see his face, but Irene did not need to see anything more than the shape of his shoulders, the dark curls and the quick steps away to know exactly who the violinist had been. There was only one man who would have played that handful of notes, that would have trilled that particular tune from a violin. She watched him attempt to duck away, but now that she knew Sherlock Holmes had been there, his presence was a glowing beacon even as he attempted to melt into the crowd.

Irene's smile grew, from lazy satisfaction to something sharper, blood red and predatory, and she left the small crowd around the plaza behind, her own footsteps swift and sure as she gave chase.

 


End file.
